Here, Kitty Kitty...
- skagitjack
- Oct 8, 2025
- 6 min read
1976
I was a backcountry ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado in 1975 and 1976. Another ranger and I were at the little ranger station there when we heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs from somewhere halfway up the ridge to our north. There are no trails up there. We looked at each other, questions in both our expressions, then said, “Let’s go!”
We climbed halfway up the steep ridge and heard the woman scream again from a little higher on the ridge, near the top. We looked at each other again with a “what the…” look. The ridge is over a thousand feet above the valley floor. We had covered half of that pretty quickly. Somehow, the woman had covered about an equal amount, if not more, in the same amount of time. We went faster, getting to the top of the ridge a little out of breath, not sure what to expect.
Then we heard the woman scream again, this time from about a half a mile west of us on that ridge. We looked at each other once again, shook our heads in disbelief, and went back down.
We told the story to one of the park naturalists the next day, and he just laughed as we finished the first or second sentence of our story. He knew. We had been trying to follow a cougar.
1997
I frequently patrolled the hill above Fort Worden State Park near Port Townsend as part of my ranger duties, usually by day, but occasionally at night to make sure people weren’t camping up there or vandalizing the gun batteries, or just causing general mischief. I would travel without any lights as I knew the hill very well by now. I would occasionally find people this way and escort them back down.
One dark fall evening I was up there, but something didn’t seem right. I was comfortable on the hill after dark, having been here now for five or more years. But the hair on the back of my neck would not stay flat. I felt spooked, watched. I never had that feeling before or since. I left the hill when the sensation got too strong for me to pretend to ignore it; I went down to the beach instead. Several deer were walking on the road at the beach. They never walked on the road at the beach. And they didn’t run away when I walked past them.
The next day I heard a report from a wildlife agent that a cougar had been spotted at nearby North Beach the day before. I am sure that I was being followed by that cougar that evening, and that the deer had fled the hill to get away from it, too.
2003
It was early in the morning one late-summer day at our home on the Spokane River, just north of the city. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was close to rising. I went out onto the back porch and just looked around, enjoying the rising warmth of the day, thinking pleasant thoughts.
I looked out across the bridge, over to the hill across the river, with its big sandy slope. Something was moving down the slope. An animal was slowly walking down the hill toward the trees on the far side of the river. “Coyote,” I thought to myself. It was a tawny color, blending in very well. “Good size coyote”, I murmured as it came closer. Then I saw that the animal was too graceful for a coyote. This animal was not from the dog family. Then I saw that the tail was definitely not a coyote tail – it was thick and very, very long. Then I saw that this was a good-sized cougar, walking down the hill, slowly creeping down, its long tail nearly straight out behind it. For a few seconds, I enjoyed watching it; then all too quickly it was gone.
Lacking good judgment, I got on my bike and rode across the river bridge and down to the bottom of the hill where it might have come out. I saw nothing and heard nothing. The ghost was gone, as ephemeral as it had come. My first cougar sighting ever. Magical and memorable.
2025
Kath and I walk Murphy several times a day, in the early morning, after lunch, after dinner, and maybe one or two other times just for fun.
One sunny day a couple of weeks ago, we decided to walk him along the trails near the Skagit Airport. We hike there once or twice a month; the trails are dry, wide, gentle, and quiet, meandering through and around a cottonwood forest of wetlands, hosting a smattering of fellow hikers.
When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a sign that said there had been several reports of a cougar in the area, so be careful. Really? Cool! There are a lot of farms and residences between here and the Cascades, so it would be rare for one to wander through here, but you never know.
We walked west, then north on a trail, deep in the woods. Murphy was ready for water and a snack after chasing his ball a few times. As he finished his treat, he looked further up the trail, and froze. We looked too, and maybe a hundred feet up the trail was a big dusky-orange kitty, overly large for a house cat, quite big in fact. It just sat on the side of the trail, soaking up the sun. We watched it for maybe 30 seconds before it decided to turn around and amble back into the woods. Its tail was long and bushy. It was too big for a house cat, and besides, we are a long way from any houses; it had normal cat ears, an orangish coat, and a big tail, so it’s not a bobcat; hmmm…. We realized it was a young cougar. And where there is a young cougar, there is a mommy cougar not far away.
It took us two seconds to decide to turn around and go back to the car. No more snacks, no ball throwing, no hiking farther, do not pass go, just go back to the car. We mentioned what we saw to a hiker heading where we had been, and she listened and then just shrugged it off, continuing on her way.
As we drove home, I looked up juvenile cougar images, and many of them looked exactly like what we had encountered. Far out!
I reported the sighting to the Port of Skagit, and they appreciated hearing about it, and also appreciated our decision to turn around. We did too.
I returned this week to see if the signs had changed. They had slightly, now saying that “…wildlife are present, so be mindful and hike at your own risk.”
Good advice.
I hiked the full two-mile loop, passing a dozen or more people along the trails on this warm October Monday. The colors are turning, the forests quiet (except near the highway). Half of the trail users had dogs. I just had a camera – just in case, you know; “wildlife are present.”
I found robins fattening themselves on berries, a raven croaking to a friend, and a passing hiker reported a hawk hunting in a wetland. Otherwise, it was just me and the hikers, enjoying our gentle strolls, the joy of being mobile and mindful, and moving through the glory of early autumn on these well-maintained trails that we share with critters that make this their home.
Some are big enough to eat us.
jack
For a great map of all the trails at the airport, follow this link:
The Airport:
The Skagit Airport project began in 1933 as a joint project of the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration. It was located on what is now known as Taxiway C.
This runway served the area for a decade until the U.S. Navy took it over in World War II to serve as an outlying airfield for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. The Navy further developed the airfield by constructing the triangular runway-taxiway configuration that remains largely unchanged to this day.
After the war, the federal government continued to operate the airport until 1958, when ownership was transferred to Skagit County. The airport changed hands again in 1965, when the County turned it over to the Port of Skagit and the Port of Anacortes as joint owners. The Port of Skagit assumed full ownership of the airport in 1975 and has operated it since then.
The trail:
The Preliminary Trail Plan for the Port of Skagit County was adopted in August 1999. The development of the nature trails represented an alternative pedestrian circulation plan in the Port’s Bayview Ridge properties, instead of the typical sidewalks, curbs and gutters that would be required to meet certain levels of service for street standards. The trails also provided added protection for the significant wetlands and wildlife habitat found on the Port property.
It appears construction of the trails was completed in 2001. There are over 10 miles of trails. The “Storybook Trail” with the freestanding signs that includes a children’s story was added in 2015 in the south trail system, and the exercise equipment was added in 2021 as a community service project with a volunteer team from Fisher Construction.
Parts of the trails parallel a couple of busy roads, which are quieter in the early morning and late evening, and on weekends.
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